On Monday all the exchange students got an introdution to the school and tour. Possibly the best thing is the one touch automatic coffee machines that will make you a good cup of coffee for 0.35 euro. I think there are 12 other exchange students from various European countries and a girl from Vancouver canada. It was a bit ackward at first, which is to be expected. I got an e-mail that night saying that I had homework for the Kompas class that I chose. So there was going to be a special three day workshop to kick off Atelier (the Kompas department I chose, they do artsy stuff). We were going to be planning and throwing a going away party for a retiring textiles teacher at the academy. So on Tuesday morning we were broken up into 3 groups; food, table manners (which I was in), and interior. It was a really good way to start the semester because we started brainstorming right away and the Dutch kids had no problem with speaking english for me, I think they're use to it because a quarter of the school is international. It was pretty much everything I was expecing. Whenever someone put out a pretty crazy idea noone shot it down and said we can't do that because..., whih would not happen at RISD. So we quickly had a pretty good vision of what the party was going to be by the end of the day. A couple of my ideas were used in the party, which felt good. Me and another girl, marijke (who's name took me two days to learn), worked on a textile/gift for Wendy (the teacher). We only had a couple of things to go on from the first e-mail as to who Wendy Doodson was. She likes birds and chololate, she's allergic to flowers and she's British (oh is she British). So the theme was high tea, with birds being the main feature. So we strung 100 tea bags with wings from the ceiling and people took teacups and brewed their tea by holding the cup up to the tea bag. The tea drippings fell onto the textile that Marijke and I made, which reveiled a hidden pied de poule pattern that we had printed with a clear acryic ink. So the tea stained only the places that we didn't print and this textile became her present and a rememberance of the night. It actually worked pretty well. The food was great and was on plates suspended in bird cages. It all turned out really great and I got to meet a lot of people.
In my design module within the man and well-being department the theme is Objects of Rememberance (Nancy you'll appreciate this). So in one class I'm designing and making a urn (yeah ceramics) and in another I'm redesigning an object of rememberance. It's still pretty vague at this point but I think it should be good. Apparently they do a lot of ceramics in well-being, what a coincidence. So that was my first week, really exciting but it'll be a lot of work because I have 5 classes and the building is only open until 10 every night and the shops are closed on the weekend. OMG they have a decent shop but not enough tools for the amout of people there. They have two tablesaws, one of which is used for plastic half the time, I can just imagine that shop during finals. Well that's all for now.
The food in the bird cages
The tea cups complete with paper cranes and chocolate bird shit
The tea bag birds. Wendy is the one on the right.
The center piece with flowers in balloons to protect Wendy form the flowers
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